Whenever I watch TV I always seem to get hung up on certain goofy commercials. Take air fresheners, for instance. Every time I see an air freshener commercial I see more “Features” packed into it - akin to software bloat.
These days it goes way beyond nice-smelling air, and I guess we can thank marketers and designers for that.
The image these commercials create is one of an entire floral-fresh lifestyle where every room of the house has it’s own scent mood. It’s part of the interior decoration now… got the walls painted? check. Ikea furniture? check. Faux flowers in the vase? check. Glade(R) scented(TM) plug-in(TM) creamcake(TM) with turbo-lav(R) aroma-fan(TM) and beauti-mood(R) light? check. Yes, this is a life where a loving, beautiful mom tirelessly defends the home against bad odors, which are portrayed as negatively as the stench of rotting flesh or voodoo gasses from a New Orleans swamp.
A grown man lays on the floor sniffing the carpet.
Please. Raise your hand if you came from a life like that. Maybe you did. It’s estimated that consumers will spend above 1.5 billion on Air Fresheners in 2006.
SC Johnson released a Glade product in August directly for tweens, or girls 8 to 12 years old, and teenage girls. Its Scented Oil Light Show plugs into walls and beams bright colors and scents like Berry Burst, Watermelon Rush and Vanilla & Cream. Glade commercials for the Light Show feature a teenage girl in a bathrobe complaining that her mother bought the freshener for her younger brother rather than for her. (source)
Why am I writing about this? Like the rest of you designers, I’ve experienced projects where you have to come up with good ways to improve something- make something new and improved out of something old and tired. I can’t watch a commercial about air fresheners without envisioning the meeting:
“Billy, can you join us in the conference room for a little brainstorming? We’ve got to come up with 5 ideas to update our client’s product by 3pm today.”
30 minutes later…
Audio alerts? That’s a good idea Billy. Hmm. We want it to be as pleasant as possible. Can we get a CD player into a wall-mount unit?
I digress. Billy would be slitting his wrists underneath the table at that point. Let’s get on with the history of the Air Freshener. But first, a moment of silence for all of the lives lost in the brainstorm meetings.
To unravel the complex puzzle of “fresh” air, I came up with one of the best-smelling timelines ever conceived by man.
Click on the image for a fragrant, full-size pdf version.
Some Highlights in the Brief History of the Air Freshener:
1) Flowers
Designer: God
Pros: smells nice, converts co2 into oxygen
Cons, requires lots of dirt, may include insects.
Ingredients: foliage, aphids
2) Perfume
Designer: Unknown
Pros: Covers body odor, death scent
Cons: expensive, hard to make
Ingredients: liquefied animal and plant bits
3) Scented candles
Designer: Olde-fashioned pig farmers
Pros: emits light, heat
Cons: emits smoke, requires costly perfume if you want a scented version
Ingredients: wax, perfume, fire
4) Green rear view-mirror tree http://www.little-trees.com/
Designer: Swiss-born Canadian businessman Julius Sämann
Pros: looks cool hanging in your car, smells similar to a pine tree, may induce tree-hugging
Cons: doesn’t grow like a real tree, may induce tree-hugging
Ingredients: paper, chemicals
5) Aerosol sprays
Designer: unknown
Pros: easy to use
Cons: chock full of unnatural chemicals.
Ingredients: chemicals
6) Scented gels
Designer: Aliens
Pros: unknown
Cons: unknown
Ingredients: Ooze
7) Plug-ins
Designer: Designers and Marketers
Pros: nice-smelling everything. Every damn room smells like flowers.
Cons: same as above. There’s no escape. Comes in a ridiculous number of awesome varieties: fans, lights, music, mood-enhancers, you name it.
8) ionic air fresheners
Designer: Scientists
Pros: Impress your friends that you shopped at “Sharper Image.” Looks like a space ship.
Cons: You may have had to shop at “Sharper Image.”
Other items of Interest:
CD-generated scents.
This is amazing stuff… but I have yet to find one that smells good in MY CD player.
Online fragrance sampler (what was I doing wrong? I couldn’t smell anything but my LCD monitor)
Bacon air freshener, for all of you bacon lovers.
Imagine using a plug-in without plugging it in… as seen in this wacky Japanese TV commercial. Nevermind the fact that un-powered air fresheners have been around since the big bang.
I know this is a wacky post, but it’s been rattling around in my head for awhile now and I had to set it free.
Technorati Tags: air_freshener, product_design, marketing, scents, design_silliness
